In that case the instance you’re on is basically the block list, right? That’s good, especially if most instances are really dedicated to stamping out that kind of thing. But if/when Mastodon gets big, it becomes a problem of scale.
In practical terms it’s kind of unrealistic to expect T&S to deal with people because they have garbage takes; most of their day is going to be dealing with the usual internet nightmare sludge, which is where I think block lists become a real utility on the user end of things. In addition to the advantage of just making the blocked users shout into the void when 90% of the site wants nothing to do with their ass, which I can tell you from observation makes them extremely mad.
Anything that requires end users to react to trolls in a reactive way and in a troll by troll basis, and only after the troll has dropped their payload is going to take its toll on vulnerable folk.
Big popular blocklists that people subscribe to aren’t always the answer, because they also have a history of incidentally impacting marginalised groups, even when they’re trying to protect them.
